And We're Back

Forever war revisited, the fusion of Marx and Rand, the long failure of the conservative movement, the ruling class versus Elon Musk, and more.

My apologies for the pause in content here. I’m working on some projects that I’ll be able to talk more about later. One of them has to do with paleoconservative thought, and the other is related to the transgender-industrial complex.

Subscriber columns on Ukraine are on the way. I wanted to back off the issue, but it is being forced down our throats at every turn, and the Republican Party’s biggest complaint about Joe Biden at this point is that he hasn’t done enough to involve Americans in the war.

I was glad J. D. Vance won his Ohio Republican primary on an explicitly anti-war message last week. The problem is that he is the exception, not the rule, with this party.

Elon Musk and the War Between Elites | Newsweek

In my latest Newsweek op-ed, I looked at Elon Musk’s move on Twitter through the lens of Robert Michels’ “iron law of oligarchy.”

Musk isn’t perfect. Nor is he a “conservative.” But those things are ultimately irrelevant to the problem of elites and their persistent control over society.

Forever War Revisited | American Greatness

by Christopher Roach

In spite of the aid already received, Ukraine appears to be slowly losing the war. The Russians, having started the war with an overly ambitious strategy have since scaled back their operations to something more realistic. Russia’s logistics problems seem to have been sorted out. Russians have already retaken the city of Mariupol. And there is now a genuine main effort in the Donbas.

America Needs Strategic Empathy in a Multipolar World | The National Interest

by Arta Moeini and Coleman Hopkins

In 2022 as in 2001, the United States—engaged in a boisterous crusade for justice—sacrificed necessity and America’s national interest while pushing middle powers together in opposition to its liberal internationalist designs. Washington contributed to the crisis and then compounded its mistakes once the Russo-Ukrainian War began by loudly presenting the conflict in simple black-and-white terms.

The Unholy Marriage of Marx and Ayn Rand | COMPACT

by Patrick Deneen

In the 1960s, when anti-totalitarian intellectuals were focused on the threat posed by the Soviet Union and Maoist China, the Italian philosopher Augusto del Noce saw a different danger on the horizon. It stemmed not from the Marxist East, but from the liberal West. Rather than employing state terror, it would exert control through soft and indirect means. The society it would create would look less like George Orwell’s 1984 than Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World.

After Horrific SCOTUS Leak, Justices Must Plow Ahead and Overturn Roe | Newsweek

by Josh Hammer

The scandalous leak of a full draft of Justice Samuel Alito's five-justice-strong majority opinion in this term's marquee Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, is an event without precedent in the Court's history.

Rise of the Professionals | COMPACT

by George Hoare

We live now in a world cast in the image of the professional managerial class, or PMC. Our politics—from the response to Trump and Brexit to the Covid crisis and now anti-Russian hysteria—reflects their whims, prejudices, and psychopathologies. Every few months, they launch a new crusade that serves their interests. Black Lives Matter became an occasion to present populist political movements as inveterately racist. Covid permitted them to arrange more favorable working conditions, while presenting truckers and others as dangerous extremists. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine became the occasion for presenting their enemies as the agents, or unwitting dupes, of the Kremlin.

Bullet Points

Reuters: President Joe Biden signed a new $150 million weapons package for Ukraine.

Consumer Price Index: Food-at-home prices have risen 10 percent in the last 12 months, marking the largest 12-month increase since March 1981.

Horowitz: Tennessee legislature passed a law that “requires people convicted of one of nine criminal offense categories to serve 100 percent of their sentences—no exceptions.” Notably, The American Conservative Union protested the legislation.

Rand Paul: “Do you know who the greatest propagator of disinformation in the history of the world is? The U.S. government”

Media

The Iron Law of Oligarchy | The Charlie Kirk Show

Charlie Kirk interviewed me for a talk about elites, power, and society. This is a kind of extended version of my Newsweek thesis.

The Failure of the Conservative Movement | Conservative Review

I joined Daniel Horowitz for an hour-long discussion about why the Republican Party only seems weak enough for someone like Donald Trump to easily take it over. In fact, the GOP excels at bottling populist lightning and using it to power its machinations against Americans.

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